Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1887-01-22
Tho Toilers Under the Sea.


can be found upon the map, but a great
multitude of them are too small to be
put down. These are coral islands,
and they are formed, little by little, by
tiny living beings. some of them so
mall that you can only see them plaiu-
ly b. using magnifying glass. L
Florida Keys, the Bermudas, and other
islands near our southern shores are the
work of the coral animals, as well as
the reefs along the Florida coasts.
Many of the islands built up in this way
are ing-shaped-round, or oval, or ir-
regular-but inclosing quiet lake. In
some the ring is incomplete, and the
water inside is q landlocked bay; in
others there is row of islands which,
if connected, would make q ring. The
Bermuda Islands are such a row.
These curious islands are called atolls.
They lie very low, and the curved
strip of land forming the island bears a
grove Of feathery palms and beautiful
Towering trees, bordered by a beach of
pure white sand. Seen from above,
an atoll would look like gigantic
green wreath floating on the bosom of
the water.
It must be wonderful thing to be
the first person who has visited one of
the lovely, lonely atolls of the Pacific,
whose only inhabitants are birds. Fifty
years ago this was more common oc-
currence than it is now, when the as
are 30 full of great ships and steamers,
as we'll as smaller craft, that most of
them had been at some time visited.
Professor Dana, who went out on an
exploring expedition some time ago,
says that "on one atoll, where no
natives ever dwelt, the birds were so
innocent of fear that we took them from
trees as we would fruit, and many n
songster lost tail feather as it sat
perched upon branch apparently un
conscious that the world contained an
enemy" They had never found ~ut
the VOW of eternal enmity sworn against
the birds by the boys. Poor little
heather birds! How they did need
missionary!
You may have heard of the coral in
sect, and of its wonderful industry
in building up great islands In
the sea, as if coral was built as honey
comb is. The coral animal is not an
insect, nor anything like one, and it
builds the coral precisely as you build
the bones in your body. 1t is o sort of
fower-animal. shaped like an aster or
an anemone or daisy. 1t has nothing
of the flower about it except resem
blance in shape, but it is as truly an
animal as an oyster or a fish. The
coral polyp has thick stem crown
ed by a row of petal-like arms
arranged about center, or sometimes
covoro1 orrannoI Tho cfon,
is the body, and the upper part of this
is hollow sack-the stomach. The
center of the flower is the mouth, and
the petals are feeders to catch and
draw in the floating food that comes
within reach. Some of the sea-
anemones do not make coral, and others
do, but all are constructed on this
simple flower plan.
When you eat and digest your food
new particles of flesh are formed.
These are pushed in between the parti-
cles already there, and at the same
time old particles which are dead and
of no further use are cast off. While
you are growing, more new particles
are made than old ones are TO you cast
off. This constant change goes on in
the bones as we'll as in the flesh, though
more slowly.
Such change is all the while tax
ing place in the coral polyps. The
coral is the skeleton of the polyp. In
stead Of the skeleton being all inside
the poAyp's body, as yours is in you
Except your teeth, or all outside, as
it is in the oyster, it is partly in and
partly out. In the lower part of the
coral animal, below the stomach, is the
skeleton; as the polyp grows it keeps
adding particles to its skeleton, and
as it does not cast off any the skeleton
grows too long for the polyp, and is
left behind as solid stem, on the tip
of which is the fower-like animal.
The polyp, though an animal, is of
very low order. 1t is really only
stomach, mouth, and feeders Al
though it has no eyes, it can somehow
tell when its prey is near, for it is
quick to reach out its beautiful petal
like arms and draw it in. 1t has no
ears, but the softest football will cause
it to draw in all its petals and shrink
down into little brown knob which
can scarcely be found among the sea-
weed at its foot. 1t cannot move about,
for it is fastened tight to its coral stem,
but is provided with a wonderful con-
trivance for the capture of the prey
beyond the reach of its arms All
along the beautiful petals are thou
sands and thousands of tiny pockets,
and in each one is coiled up a
long, slender thread. Let an unwary
little fish come within range, and In
a second hundreds of these threads are
shot out, each turning itself inside out
as it comes. The threads are barbed
and poisoned, and woe to the fish who
is lassoed. He is stunned, and soon
dies. Then the victim is drawn into
the innocent-looking flower. After the
meal is digested, the flower turns itself
wrong side outward, and so gets rid of
any fish-bones it cannot digest. Out
of food so caught and digested the solid
coral is formed. single polyp would
form only small stem, but the polyps
increase by sprouting from buds, or by
one of them stretching and splitting
up into two or three or dozen polyps,
till great branches or sheets of them
are formed with the coral underneath.
The shape of the clumps or branches
lis determined by the way they increase.
Coral polyps cannot live in the
depths of the sea, but when they lodge
near enough to the surface, and IN
water which all the year round is never
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